Dear John
by V. Thomas
Summary: Valkerie is an angel, but she's a lonely angel. Having been murdered, she was given her wings prematurely, and forced to leave her loved ones behind. Unable to let it go, she frequently writes letters to John Watson, the man she loved, and drops them from the edge of the clouds, praying they'll reach their destination.
1. Happy Birthday

**Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock. However, Valkerie Thomas is a character of my creation and the source of my pen name. No, this is not a fanfiction in which I placed myself. I simply liked the name Valkerie Thomas and chose to use it.**

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Heaven is a quiet place. Generally, there's little activity. At most, the youngest angels might play a rambunctious game of tag, and the adults may share a strong drink for old times' sake, but there's a sense of serenity to it all. Soft music filters through the clean, crisp air, and the sun shines brightly. The fluffiness of the surrounding clouds serves as a soothing backdrop and helps to reflect light off of the elaborate golden gates. All in all, it is the typical picture of a peaceful afterlife.

At least, that was how Valkerie Thomas saw it from her lonely corner.

Val was a recent arrival, an angel who'd received her wings far before her time. In life, she'd been an inspector for the Scotland Yard, and a gifted one at that. Her talents had lain in breaking up underground organizations, like smuggling rings. Under Greg Lestrade's division, she'd had a hand in toppling at least seven, but it was characteristic of her to give some of the credit to two of her closest friends, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

John.

She missed one thing about being alive, and it was not the thrill of the chase she knew from police-work. It was not the quiet evenings spent with the cat or the rowdy nights out with friends; Valkerie missed John. He'd been there for her through everything that happened after they met. When Val's brother was wounded over in Afghanistan, John had been there. When she contracted pneumonia, John had been there. When Moriarty attacked, when Sherlock jumped off of St. Bart's, when she'd been wrongfully arrested, when she was acquitted, when it all seemed hopeless, John had been there!

Most painfully, when she had died, John had been there.

And so Valkerie sat in her lonely corner of Heaven, wrapped in her snowy white wings and browsing the pages of a leather-bound scrapbook. A stationery box rested beside her, holding down an envelope and a few sheets of thick paper.

Fingers tracing the border of a photo, Val's blue eyes swam with tears. Bowing her head, she blinked them back, slid the picture out of its protective plastic, shut the scrapbook, and began a letter.

_Dear John,_

_Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear John... It just doesn't have the same ring to it when I know you can't hear me singing. All the same, please have a happy birthday. You deserve it so, _so_ much... I can't give you a real present, but I hope this letter is enough; I'm putting everything I have into it, even a picture. It's the one Trin took of you and I in the park last spring, when all the flowers were just starting to bloom. You took my fedora just as Trin got the picture, and... No, I'll let you see for yourself, let you remember whatever you'd like. All I ask is that you look carefully at the tree to your right in the photo. See the "JW + VT" carved there? Trin did that as a joke, and pointed it out to me a few days before this picture was taken. I meant to tell you, but... Well, I got sidetracked. I'm glad those letters are there, though. It's proof of... of... Oh, I don't know what it's proof of. I just love it. It's real. It's proof of us._

_Happy birthday, John. Please smile today. I miss seeing you smile._

_Love, _

_ Val_

Folding the paper up, Val carefully slid it into an envelope that was simply addressed to "John Watson." She handled it as if the slightest touch would cause it to fall apart in her fingers, taking all those words she'd found deep in her heart and scattering them to the four winds.

As she tucked the photo into the envelope alongside the letter, she suddenly scrambled to remove the paper and fumbled with her pen.

_P.S.,_ she added. _I know what will make you smile! Sherlock is alive and well; he faked his death. I'm not sure how just yet, but I know he's in London, disguised so well I don't think even you'd recognize him. I'm sure he'll come clean soon. There's no reason for him to pretend he's a dead fraud anymore. Smile, John. Please._

Rereading the post-script, Val decided it was sufficient and folded the letter lovingly. Slipping it back into the envelope, she sealed the package before she could change her mind.

"Happy birthday," she murmured. Putting her pen back into the stationery box and resting the scrapbook on top of it, she spread her wings and got to her feet. Sighing heavily, she picked her way around a plethora of flowers to the edge of her cloud. The letter was close to her chest, as if she were protecting it.

Blinking back more tears, Val dropped the envelope over the edge of the cloud. Instantly, it fluttered in circles, twisting and diving through the air. It twirled and spiraled and danced in the breeze until gravity finally called it to London below.

By then, though, Val had retreated to her lonely corner, watching the world go by until it was time to write another letter.


	2. When It Rains

Five straight days of heavy rain, gray skies, and ferocious winds pummeled London quite some time after Valkerie sent her first letter. The streets swirled with rainwater, the gutters burbled, and the puddles multiplied like mice. Mud streaked the sides of cabs and tried to steal the shoes off of the poor souls who stomped through it. Bright fingers of lightning reached towards the ground, trying to tug it into the sky.

All the while, Val watched with sodden wings the same color as the storm clouds she rode. The rain pouring from the cloud below her was nearly the same as the rain from the fierce gale around her. Even as she huddled in her damp gray feathers, she smiled warmly at the world below; it was her choice to sit through the violent weather instead of wishing for a clear, sunny day in paradise. It was her choice to share the storm with London. Best of all, it was her choice to share the storm with John.

Picking a flower from the many around her that were plastered to the ground in the tempest, Val twirled it between forefinger and thumb.

"Lily of the valley," she murmured. The little white bells shivered and tried to no avail to fight the pull of the wind. The fragile stem nearly sprang from her grasp.

Sighing, Valkerie bid the rain on her cloud to cease falling. A sudden urge to write a letter had risen up inside her and would not be denied.

As the torrent transformed into sprinkling droplets, which eventually ceased to fall, she withdrew her stationery box from beneath her wings. The stiff cardboard was dotted with moisture, but not damaged.

The only thing Heaven could possibly damage was a lonely heart.

Pressing her pen to the page she had withdrawn from the box, Valkerie slowly began to pour her soul out with each mark made.

_Dear John,_

_Did you know that, when it rains in London, I'm always there? Of course not... You're the only person I know who looks up when it rains, but you don't look far enough. All the same, I love it when you stare up at the sky through the windows of your flat and it's just raining cats and dogs outside. I sit on top of the clouds and look back every time. It's as close as we can get nowadays... Maybe someday you'll look closer and see me. Please try. Even if you just see the flowers that grow on the edge of the clouds up here, I will know you're trying to find me; it would hurt so much less than knowing you weren't actually looking back._

_Speaking of flowers, all this rain is making them bloom like I've never seen flowers bloom before. They're so colorful, and have such perfect petals. I suppose that's because this is Heaven, but it's beautiful._

Val paused for a minute, looking at the flora around her. The stem of a nearby lily of the valley was bent under the weight of the leftover rainwater. The white bells brushed her knee as if seeking help, and she carefully shook the delicate flower. Little droplets of water leaped away, sprinkling other flowers in turn. The lily of the valley was no longer bent over. At this, a smile tugged at the corner of Val's lips, and her pen returned to the paper.

_While I'm still going on about flowers, do you remember the origami lotuses from "The Blind Banker?" That was quite the case... Even though those flowers were a bad thing, a sign of death, they were folded so neatly that I couldn't help loving them. I think I'll fold this letter in the shape of a lotus; don't be alarmed. This lotus will be white, not black... Oh. You already know that if you're reading this letter. Oops._

One more idea crossed Valkerie's mind before she completed the letter. She knew she could only include so much, but couldn't resist packing in just a little more of her love.

Sitting almost an arm's length away was a single unique plant: a lone purple hyacinth. Its clusters of flowers waved slightly with the breeze Heaven was experiencing, and had Val mesmerized. Tentatively, she reached out, fingers closing around the stem where the six-petaled flowers didn't grow. With a twitch of her wrist, the stem snapped, the flowers quivered, and she had her own sprig of purple hyacinth blossoms in her right hand.

"I remember your meaning," she told the plant quietly. "You ask for forgiveness." With those words, she laid it beside the paper and finished penning her last words for the day.

_John, the flower I'm sending with this is a purple hyacinth. Every flower has a meaning, and I want you to remember the meaning of this particular one. It means "please forgive me." I'm sorry I left you behind. I know it hurt everybody I knew, but it cut you the deepest. I tried to stay alive for you; I swear I did. But I... I failed. I gave up. It hurt too much to hang on, and I threw in the towel. _

Recounting her own death, Val bit the inside of her cheek. Her vision blurred, and a tear trickled down her nose and onto the paper. John's name was blotched; the ink had smudged drastically with just that one droplet.

_All I ask right now is that you look up when it rains and tell me you forgive me. Just whisper it; mouth the words if it makes you feel better. Every time I see you, I wonder if, by dying, by not being strong enough, I let you down. It certainly feels like I did, and never will I ever be so happy than if you prove me wrong and tell me it's okay. You just have to mean it._

_Love,_

_ Val_

More hot tears pricked at her eyes as she capped her pen up and stowed it away in the stationery box beside the lily of the valley she'd picked a few minutes ago. With shaking fingers, she recalled the steps for making an origami lotus flower.

"Petal-side down... Fold corners into the center... Fold corners again... And fold them again. Now flip it over and fold the corners in again... Bend the corners a tiny bit... Pull first set of petals out, then the second... Turn third set inside-out..." When she was done reciting the steps to herself, Val had a brilliant white lotus cupped in the palm of her hand. Twice, she turned it over to make sure the ink hadn't run, and then she turned it around to check for little tears in the paper where the petals met the base.

A perfect lotus.

"And lotuses stand for purity," she informed the flowers that tickled her knees. Satisfied, if a bit teary-eyed, she slipped the stem of the hyacinth into one of the new folds in her letter. The purple buds shook as she wiggled it into the paper flower, but it stayed in place for her efforts. Then, holding the floral package in both hands, she stepped to the edge of the cloud, peered down at the rain below, and gently blew on it.

The lotus and its living counterpart gracefully fell into open air and darted around the violent raindrops below, swishing this way and that. Unlike the previous occasion on which she'd sent a letter, Valkerie watched its descent, hope in her eyes, but regret in her heart.

She hoped that it would reach John.

She regretted that it couldn't take her along.

And so Valkerie sat on the storm clouds for the next day and a half, riding out the tempest with her wonderful London, her beloved John. It was as close as they could get.


	3. It's Selfish, But

Three full years passed before Val found herself able to write another letter. It wasn't that she hadn't tried; far from it! The problem was that she'd been unable to find the right words.

The first draft had been created a few short months after Val's second letter. At the time she'd written it, an intense wave of emotion had swept over her. The ink was too smudged to be legible by the time she was done sobbing.

Draft number two had been slightly more successful. Valkerie had used pencil this time, and her words were smudge-free. However, she'd torn the letter up into confetti and left it on the ground as she stormed away. Her tone had become more and more bitter as the letter went on in spite of the fact that she had no wish to be petty.

Finally, the third distracted draft had been crumpled up and dropped into a thunderstorm. Nothing in the world could have moved her to send such a pitiful letter. It had been filled with all kinds of pathetic pleas and desperate appeals for forgiveness, things she would have never said to any living soul before. The simple concept of begging so helplessly had caused the unfinished letter's demise.

Now, though, Val sat on the thick branch of an oak tree with her wings folded in and her stationery box settled neatly in her lap. Another letter was beginning to take shape in her mind, and she forced down all her sorrow, jealousy, and pride to write it.

_Dear John, _

_Congratulations on your first wedding anniversary. You looked so nice in a tux last year... Mary was very pretty, too. It was a lovely dress she chose. Even I would be willing to wear something that beautiful, and I really don't like drawing attention to myself by dressing up. You've made a good choice yourself, marrying a woman like that. I can tell that even Sherlock thinks you've done well, something I never thought he would ever think. Now that he's back, though, he's... Sherlock certainly changed. There's more emotion in him now, if only a little bit. Oh, now I'm rambling like Mrs. Hudson does. I'm sorry._

_Back to your anniversary, though... Do you ever wish that it was me last year instead of Mary? I know it's selfish, and that you're happy now, but I wish it had been you and I. As much as I understand that you and Mary are... so wonderful together, so alike, so perfect..._

Val had to collect herself before continuing. That word, "perfect," was... It was one of the few words that had become painful for her to use in any form. It hurt so much to think, to write, to admit.

A shaky sigh passed from between her lips, and her fingers were coiled tightly about her pen.

"Write," she ordered herself. "Finish the letter."

With a great effort, she forced herself on.

_I honestly believe that I have never seen a happier couple, John, and it makes me smile to see you smile. I've watched you mope around for far too long. You deserve to be so much happier than you are even now, with a wife and a child on the way. _

_You deserve the world._

Furiously, Val scratched the last four words out. "Sappy!" she scolded herself as the sentence vanished beneath a storm of ink. "Don't be so sappy. Mean what you're saying!" More ink appeared, guaranteeing the elimination of the offending phrase.

With a shuddering, frustrated sigh, Valkerie laid the pen down and put her head in her hands. The letter crinkled softly under her elbows.

"Quit being pitiful, Val. Quit rambling and complaining and repeating yourself. Just tell him how you feel in plain English and sign the letter." Over and over she muttered this, searching for the willpower to continue without unloading all of her problems onto John.

_John, I'm sorry. Next time, I promise I'll write you a better letter, one that isn't full of me going on and on like a broken record. All I really have to say is that I'm happy for you, I envy Mary, and I will always love you._

_Love,_

_ Val_

Folding the paper up with far less care than she'd given the previous letters, she stuffed it into a blank envelope. As she went to lick the adhesive, though, she hesitated. Brows furrowed, she stared long and hard at the envelope before coming to the conclusion that there was something missing. Val tapped her fingers against the cardboard box, vexed. The answer was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't figure out quite what it was. Then, a small "oh" of understanding escaped her, and she sifted through the bottom of the stationery box without knocking the letter to the ground. Flicking through the blank papers and empty envelopes, she finally came to a sheet of paper folded with extreme care and a sheet of wax paper inside of it. As she unfolded it, she managed a weak smile.

"No smudges," she declared. The pencil drawing she'd done of John and Mary on their wedding day was as crisp and detailed as it had been last year. Nothing had changed, nothing was blurred. The wax paper had done its job well.

Slipping the sketch into the envelope, Valkerie realized it was probably the nicest thing she'd be sending to John that day. The rest of the letter was, in spite of her efforts to prevent such a thing, petty, maybe even whiny. The drawing, though, was simple as well as a sign that she wasn't as bitter as she seemed.

"Off you go." Those three words graced the envelope as she let it fall. She had not given herself time to doubt what she had written, and had not allowed herself to take the sketch back. Even with her great white wings, she wouldn't be able to catch it once it passed the very bottom of the clouds. Once you were in Heaven, you stayed in Heaven. There was no chasing after letters, no haunting your friends, no delivering your love. You were trapped in paradise.

"If it were really paradise," she mumbled, blue eyes fixed on the falling envelope, "I could leave."

Turning her back on the world below, Val decided that Heaven was the farthest thing from paradise and strode away, engulfed in her wings. As she went, a violent thunderstorm erupted over her head, crackling ominously while drenching her without mercy.

The chill from the storm felt better than the bitterness in her heart, and it relieved her to know that any passing angels would be unable to tell her tears from the rain.


End file.
